No. 9 (Spring 2017), 140-163 ISSN 2014-7023 BROKEN SCULPTURES: REMARKS ON THE EARLY MEDIEVAL SCULPTURES OF SANTA PRASSEDE Antonella Ballardini Università degli studi Roma Tre e-mail: [email protected] Received: 6 Feb. 2017 | Revised: 22 March 2017 | Accepted: 15 April 2017 | Available online: 21 June 2017 | doi: 10.1344/Svmma2017.9.12 Resum Dedicato ai frammenti scultorei della basilica di Santa Prassede (817-824), il contributo propone alcune riflessioni su un episodio emblematico dell’età classica e creativa della scultura alto medievale a Roma. Paraules clau: scultura alto medievale, arredo liturgico, Santa Prassede, Roma, Oratorio di San Zenone, Pasquale I Abstract This paper looks into the fragments of liturgical furniture of Santa Prassede (817-824): an emblematic example of classical and creative sculpture in the early medieval Rome. Key Words: Early Medieval Sculpture, Liturgical Furnishings, Santa Prassede, Rome, the Oratory of San Zenone, Pope Paschal I SVMMA 2017 140 Broken Sculptures: Remarks on the Early Medieval Sculptures of Santa Prassede Antonella Ballardini The sculpture fragments from the Roman basilica of Santa Prassede all’Esquilino are the best known for those concerned with the Early Middle Ages, not only for their distinctive execution, but also because despite the uncertain chronological horizon of the sculpture of this period, they can be dated with some precision. The execution of the four largely intact plutei, which include a modest number of fragments from decorated panels, exhibit technical characteristics and a decorative style that can be compared with the sculptural fragments from Santa Maria in Domnica—the diaconia on the Caelian Hill— and Santa Cecilia—the old titular church in Trastevere. Like Santa Prassede, these churches were also rebuilt by Pope Paschal I (817-824).1 (Fig. 1) Associated with the legendary figure of Prassede, who was “more pleasing to the Lord than the stars,”2 and almost a symbol of the founding martyr of the Church of Rome, the thousand- year history of the basilica can be studied through literary and epigraphic sources. The archival documents (both ancient and recent) related to it, and a partial archaeological excavation have attracted the interest of scholars and academics.3 Even before the four fragmented plutei carved from large slabs of cipollino marble came to light in the basilica (1915), Raffaele Cattaneo, in the volume L’architettura in Italia dal VI secolo al Mille (1889), described the renowned oratory of San Zenone as “la cosa più ragguardevole che racchiuda Santa Prassede fra i resti del secolo IX.”4 It is likely that his conclusion was influenced by the context—that of the basilica in the 1880s—which he saw modified by the so- called “decorative style of Pius IX.”5 However, if reinterpreted within the methodological approach that inspired L’Architettura in Italia, the reference to San Zenone allows us to understand why the oratory was “remarkable” for Cattaneo both in itself and in order to reconstruct a more general diachronic picture of architecture and sculpture in the Early Middle Ages. In fact, San Zenone not only preserved a ‘contemporary’ inscription,6 but also showed, and still shows today, an unaltered original ‘organic’ link between 1 PANI ERMINI 1974a: 111-113, Tables XXII-XXXIV; MELUCCO VACCARO 1974: 167-175, Tables XLIX-LII; RANUCCI 2003: 218-227 RIGHETTI 2007: 78-81; BALLARDINI 2008: 225-246. For a technical discussion of the sculpture, see: MACCHIARELLA 1976a: 282-288. 2 “...Praxedis D(omi)no super aethra placentis…” the inscription is from a mosaic in the apse of the basilica, see: FAVREAU 1992: 681-727; FAVREAU 1997: 114-120. 3 CIAMPINI 1699: 143-143; DAVANZATI 1725; KRAUTHEIMER, CORBETT 1971: 235-262; APOLLONJ GHETTI 1961; BALLARDINI 1999: 5-68; CAPERNA 1999. For a reconsideration of the documentation from B.M. Apollonj Ghetti’s excavation, see: CAPERNA 2014: 51-57 and 79-80. 4 CATTANEO 1889: 153. For a biography of Raffaele Cattaneo, see: RUSSO: 2012: 291-292. 5 “Putroppo goffi restauratori moderni hanno guasto l’interno di questa basilica, coprendone le pareti con volgari e stonate pitture…” CATTANEO 1889: 152; CAPERNA 2014: 38-39. 6 ✝Paschalis praesulis opus decor fulgit in aula / quod pia optulit vota studuit reddere D(omino)o: “Di Paschal l’opra in questa reggia splende / Che i voti a Dio, c’havea promessi, rende,” see: PANVINIO 1570: 333 (translation by M. A. Lanfranchi). 141 SVMMA 2017 No. 9 (Spring 2017), 140-163 ISSN 2014-7023 architectural sculpture and the rest of the building.7 With an eye refined by classical training and the technical skills of an architect, Cattaneo was able to establish the relative chronology of the sculptural and decorative arrangement of the chapel, including the floor, which he recognised as one of the earliest examples of medieval opus sectile.8 In San Zenone, Cattaneo identified the reuse of elements from the classical era that had been reworked during the ninth century. Thus, in recognising that those components were reused during the Early Middle Ages, he opened up an unprecedented perspective regarding both the study of the practice of reuse and our knowledge of the development of sculpture that was intertwined with it.9 (Fig. 2) Therefore, regarding the ‘various periods’ found in the architectural sculpture of the chapel, he reflects on the chronology of the columns’ plinths and bases inside the oratory and draws attention to the adaptation of Ionic capitals—in a ‘Byzantine style’—on the outer façade, which he distinguishes from the dosserets decorated in a zig-zag pattern. In his opinion, these were the work of the same “Italo-Byzantine” artist who carved the jambs. The classification of the “styles” of early medieval sculpture proposed by Cattaneo in the last quarter of the nineteenth century (“Latin- Barbarian;” “Byzantine-Barbarian;” and/or “Italio-Byzantine” style) needs to be reconsidered from a historiographical perspective. However, the fact is that scholars still resort to his lucid reading of this particular monument, which in turn confirms the validity of the chronology he proposed for the architectural sculpture of San Zenone.10 Plutei and Pavement It is a pity that Raffaele Cattaneo (1861-1889), a contemporary of Giacomo Boni (1859-1925), did not live long enough to witness the work carried out at Santa Prassede under the supervision of Antonio Muñoz. After being appointed as superintendent, between 1913 and 1918, Muñoz played a decisive role in the decision to give the floor of Santa Prassede a neo-Cosmatesque appearance.11 It was precisely then that the eighteenth-century floor revealed the presence of the four fragmented plutei and other smaller sculpture fragments that are presently affixed to the walls of the old northern transept (the chapel of the Crucifix). (Fig. 3) The first person to write about this homogeneous sculpture group was Muñoz, who gave a brief presentation at the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology a year after the discovery, “... upon removing some white marble slabs it was found that on the back they had decorations that were characteristic of the seventh- to tenth-century Roman style. They are obviously two plutei from the schola cantorum of Paschal I. One of them measures 2.20 x 1 m and has two circles within rhombi; the other measures 2.24 x 1 m and features geometric figures, three crosses whose lateral arms were chiseled at a later time.”12 7 For Raffaele Cattaneo—just as for Pietro Selvatico—writing about architecture also involved writing about architectural sculpture, BALLARDINI 2009: 109-115; BALLARDINI 2013: 159. 8 CATTANEO 1889: 154-155; GUIDOBALDI, GUIGLIA GUIDOBALDI 1983: 468-469. 9 On reused materials in San Zenone, PENSABENE 2015: 405-408; 415; 858. 10 PANI ERMINI 1974a: 134-144, Tables XXXV-XLV. 11 CAPERNA 2014: 162-166, fig. 182-185. 12 MUÑOZ 1918: 119-128. For a discussion of the work of Antonio Muñoz who, between 1914 and 1944, was responsible for restoring the main ‘medieval’ sites in Rome, see: BELLANCA 2002: 136-137 and 321-322. SVMMA 2017 142 Broken Sculptures: Remarks on the Early Medieval Sculptures of Santa Prassede Antonella Ballardini Unfortunately, the work on the site was carried out without any regard to recording the locations of the archaeological findings, or the eventual traces left by the anchors of the plutei and the marble balusters on the oldest part of the floor, which would have made it possible to ground the study of the liturgical layout of Pope Paschal I’s buildings on archaeological data.13 However, the writings of Benigno Davanzati and Giovanni Marangoni provide some indirect data about the early medieval pavement and presbytery. Both authors saw the basilica’s early medieval floor before its complete restoration in 1742 as part of the restoration initiative promoted by Cardinal Ludovico Pico della Mirandola.14 Thus, in 1744, Giovanni Marangoni, denounced the circulation of countless epigraphs removed during the reconstruction of the old flooring of the basilica, “which was fully paved by the blessed Pope Paschal I with inscriptions that were both refined and Christian, once all these marbles were selected, they filled up the atrium of the church, and although we begged the Father Procurator General to at least salvage those that bore inscriptions, we were told that the monks could not do anything, for the stonecutter had reached an agreement with their superiors to renovate the pavement that included the purchase of all the marbles; thus it was refurbished with bricks and the sole guide of marble slabs, though some few panels with some inscriptions have been left in the lateral naves.”15 Marangoni’s testimony, as a scholar and expert in Antiquity, suggested that until 1742 the floor of Santa Prassede remained, to some extent, a mixture of early medieval flagstones with inscriptions from Antiquity, both pagan and Christian.